


A Death in the Family

by RobberBaroness



Series: Darkest Timeline [4]
Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22218079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobberBaroness/pseuds/RobberBaroness
Summary: Lynette and Lyonors plot to escape.  Gawain and Mordred plot to kill each other.
Relationships: Gawain/Dame Ragnelle, Guinevere/Arthur Pendragon, past Gaheris/Lynette
Series: Darkest Timeline [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1598476
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	A Death in the Family

Lyonors and Laurel could mourn; Lynette had no time. Not now, when her brother in law had seized the throne, and gone from being courteously disinterested in her to actively threatening. There was no time to think of the man she loved and hated in equal measures; Gaheris, prideful and unfaithful one moment, kind and self-sacrificing the next. There was no time to think of Gareth, either, the man she had once thought she might marry until he and Lyonors had proved to have other plans. It was only her sister and her cousin and herself she could care about, if she wanted to survive.

And to think, she’d thought they were all done with this sort of thing. It was the Red Knight of the Red Lands all over again, but with no enemy so courteous as to openly demand what he wanted. She could almost have been nostalgiac for that straightforward siege. Mordred was planning to- what? Keep them as concubines? Find them all new husbands among his loathsome friends? Seek out members of their families who would pay for their return? Keep them alive in memory of his brothers? Kill them on a sheer whim? Whatever the case was, she had no intention of staying and finding out.

“Stop crying,” she snapped at Laurel. “I told you- act as if everything is perfectly fine, and we’re taking a pleasant stroll. As far as these brutes know, we think we’re perfectly free to go anywhere.”

“They also know we’re in mourning,” hissed Lyonors, “so Laurel may very well cry if she wishes. Show a little gentility, sister!”

Lynette bit back a comment about why anyone would mourn for Agravain. Laurel had loved him, god alone knew why, and she supposed that was enough. For her part, she was convinced that if he’d not been killed, Agravain would have been among their jailors, but Lyonors always did say she thought the worst of everyone. Well, who had been proven right now about that?

Gaheris might have also been on the jailor’s side. It just depended on which of his brothers had gotten around to influencing him first, Gawain or Mordred. But she’d already promised herself she wouldn’t think about her husband until they were safely out of the castle.

“Keep to the shadows,” Lynette said, rather than voicing any of her thoughts. “If anyone sees you, pretend you have no reason to hide. But any castle has secret ways in and out for cases just such as this, and we’re going to find them-”

“Lynette!”

Lynette spun around trying to see who had whispered her name. There was no one in her immediate line of sight, but crouching behind a crate, she saw a flash of red-gold hair. Stepping closer, the tear-stained face of Guinevere came into view.

“My lady!” Lynette attempted to curtsy, but her Queen stopped her by grabbing at her skirt.

“We have to escape- but I have to go back- Ragnelle-”

Lynette made a quieting gesture in alarm. Was there no one else within this castle who possessed a bit of sense? But even she held back at the notion of scolding her own Queen.

“Your Majesty, we will escape, but we have to be quiet about it. If anyone sees you out of the tower, it’s all over for all of us. Do you know of any passageways within this castle? Any preparations you and the King had for sieges?”

Guinevere nodded.

“Then you’ll be our savior. Get us out of here and I’ll get us through the forest.”

Guinevere stumbled to her feet, afraid that any motion would be seen, while Lynette urged her forward impatiently. Around a corner, she pressed a series of stones in the wall and a dark corridor emerged. Lynette took hold of a torch from the wall and followed Guinevere down the stairs into a cellar- and directly into the path of two men.

“My liege!” 

Arthur and Gawain were recognizable to Lynette even in this strange context, but it had not been the case for everyone they met. It hadn’t taken them long to realize they would need to stay disguised, once they’d heard that the valiant King Arthur had been murdered by the traitor Lancelot, and his nephew Mordred had taken the throne. There had even been speculation in one pub by a loud drunk as to what would happen to the adulterous whore Guinevere. Gawain had beaten the man until he was near death, only being pulled off of him (reluctantly) by Arthur when the speaker was choking on his own blood. Luckily for their disguise, no one had thought it might be Sir Gawain, Defender of Maidenhood, but simply a patriotic peasant with an admiration for the Queen who had started the brawl. A few drinkers had even raised their glasses to him. 

“Odysseus, I see. We’ve brought your Penelope to you.” Lynette enjoyed having the chance to drop a few classical references with people who might have actually read a book once in their lives, but she enjoyed more the sight of her King and Queen embracing each other. If she’d been in a worse mood, if she’d been thinking about Gaheris, it might have sickened her, but for now the sight of anyone being reunited with a living loved one was a touching scene.

“The tower,” Guinevere was crying. “The tower, you have to go to the tower and stop them-”

“What happened? Has he harmed you?”

“No, not yet, though he means to marry me after he’s given the appearance of a mourning period. But others- Ragnelle-”

Gawain started.

“Ragnelle- what has happened to her?”

Guinevere began to shake in something that might have been fear and might have been anger.

“Oh god, Gawain- she’s in the tower, but I don’t know if she’s alive! She told me to run while they were distracted with her- she said she was going to fight- but they had swords and she had scissors, and I don’t know-”

“They? Who was it?”

“Mordred and another. She said he was your enemy. She said he had a false French name.”

None of the assembled had ever seen a look of pure, stark fear on Gawain’s face before. He bolted past his king and stormed up the stairs before anyone could stop him.

“Let him go,” said Arthur when Lyonors reached out. “If any man is safe in a castle full of enemies, it’s Gawain.”

 _Gaheris would have done this for me_ , Lynette thought, _whatever else I might say about him_. That was as much of a eulogy as she could allow herself to give him.

***

When he could wait for Gawain no longer and had heard no sounds of battle, Arthur followed his path up to the tower where Guinevere had been imprisoned. Indeed, there was no battle to be found, but there was the remains of one. A knight lay dead upon the floor, with something stuck into his throat. A beautiful woman lay on the floor beside him, bruised and scraped and unmoving. And Gawain sat upon the floor with the woman’s head in his lap, stroking her hair as if she were merely asleep.

“Gawain-”

“Uncle.” Gawain’s eyes did not so much as flicker towards Arthur. “You can put the story together as well as I can.”

Arthur could not look at Ragnelle in this moment, the woman who had livened up his court with her quick wit and her warm laughter, who had shamed them all when under her curse and forgiven them all just as readily when freed from it. If he didn’t look, he could think of her as having escaped and being somewhere waiting for them. But if he looked-

“She will be avenged. All who have been harmed by Mordred and his men will be avenged by our knights.”

“Leave Mordred to me. Guinevere said he was in the room with them. He commanded his robber knight. He caused this to happen.”

“Don’t let grief make you foolish, Gawain,” said Arthur. “We’ll come back here with an army, but in the meantime, we must get the surviving women to safety.”

“You lead them. You’ll be enough.”

“And you will be with us. I command you.”

“You command me? Don’t delude yourself. Your kingdom has fallen. Your knights are slaughtering each other.” Gawain stood. “And still you have your love. But I have nothing to lose.”

***

Mordred looked small sitting upon the throne, like a child at play. When Arthur was not holding court, he prefered to stay in his rooms or go for walks in the forest- in contrast, there was something almost pathetic about Mordred remaining in the throne room when all his men were on patrol, as it were himself he was trying to convince that he was truly king. 

“You.” Gawain stepped into the throne room and pointed his sword at Mordred. “You handed my wife to that brute.”

Mordred looked up at his older brother.

“Gawain. I expected you, but not this soon. Perhaps you’re a little early even for your own good. With one cry, I could summon twenty knights to kill you. I don’t care how legendary your strength is, twenty against one means that someone will get a lucky shot at the back of your head with a mace and down you’ll go. Perhaps you should speak more civilly to me.”

“Civility? You think a creature like you deserves civility? A throne? A kingdom? Did you ever really think Guinevere would marry you after she had known a man like Arthur?”

Of all the things Gawain had said, this was the one that seemed to get his younger brother’s attention. Nevertheless, Mordred pretended unconvincingly at boredom in his tone of voice.

“Guinevere will grow accustomed to me. I am much like her husband, only younger and cleverer. She may even grow fond of me in time.”

“Fond of you handing her ladies over to your men for sport?”

Mordred’s lip curled.

“Oh, spare me the indignation, Gawain. Do you think I enjoy associating with scum like Breuse Sans Pitie? I needed a duelist. He’d defeated you in the past, in case you’ve forgotten. Wasn’t it Lancelot who saved your life?” Mordred lingered over the name. “The man named his price. I accepted. Your wife had gained quite the reputation for her beauty, you know. Perhaps you should have left her a crone.”

Gawain’s footsteps were heavy as he approached the throne.

“She killed your duelist,” he said. “A jab to the throat with scissors, just as he had his hands around hers. Whatever he did or tried to do, Ragnelle died like a knight, and your Breuse Sans Pitie died like a filthy bandit.”

“A pity. I should have made her my champion.” Mordred sighed. “Do you want to hate me? Go ahead. I can come up with more reasons for you to do so. Did you know that Gaheris killed Mother? You executed the wrong man for her murder. I knew, and I let you do it. Did you know Agravain and I murdered Dinadan for mocking us, even though he had saved our lives? Or, did you know that Merlin tried to have me killed as an infant, foreseeing that I would bring about disaster? Mother told me when I was but a child. My noble father interfered and I survived, and he dug his own grave in doing so.”

“Then the crime was Arthur’s in saving you.” 

Mordred sneered.

“How very righteous of you. Did you know, I wanted to let you live as well? But I couldn’t trust you. I knew you would side with Arthur against your own family. If you hadn’t been his lapdog, you would be at my side, Duke of the realm, right hand of the king, and your wife would still be alive.”

Gawain struck Mordred hard across the face, hard enough to send blood flying across the throne.

“You don’t deserve to mention her. Your pet bully killed her for fighting back. I could kill you the same way, break your neck with only one hand. Go and call your twenty men- they won’t reach me before I’ve killed their pretender king.”

Gawain’s hands wrapped around his brother’s throat at the same moment that Mordred reached up and plunged a dagger into his gut.

“If it means anything to you,” Mordred whispered, “I really am sorry.”


End file.
